Friday, July 04, 2008

Passion & Emotion

Are you passionate? Or are you emotional? Does it mean the same?
No… on the surface of it, you are passionate about something; you get emotional about someone.

But there’s a more fundamental difference between the two.
Passion involves mind; emotion, by definition, excludes mental judgments.

Passion drives you to action. A passionate gardener; for example, would study his plants, read up about how best he can take care of them, he wouldn’t mind getting his hands dirty with soil – on the contrary, he would just love it. On the other hand, someone who just gets emotional about plants and trees would keep on complaining about loss of forest cover without ever setting out his foot to do something about it.

It is alright, in fact essential, to be emotional about someone. But emotions block critical analysis; you can hardly bring yourself about to criticize the object of your affection. But, being passionate about the relationship will make you strive for giving your best, and bringing out the best from the other person.
Emotions are self-centric… one may pine away for someone without ever thinking of ways to improve the other person. Passion is all about making its subject better.

Passion is often backed by a vast knowledge about the subject. If you are passionate about computers, you are likely to read more about them, study them in detail. If you are just emotional about movies of the past, all you are likely to do is whine about how such classics are no longer made.

More often than not, emotions are abstract feelings about generic subjects. It is rather difficult to describe why you feel the way you feel. A passionate person is more likely to give you the specific reasons for why he or she rooting for a particular cause.

Emotions are important…. they distinguish us from animals, and bring in some beautiful moments in one’s life. One can’t help being emotional; but it would help to bring in more of passion to everything, be it your work or your relationships.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Very nice! I enjoyed reading it!

Viraagi said...

Passion is a derivative of emotions we feel. Almost like a by-product. For instance I feel anger (primary emotions), I passionately pursue things (chopping of a block of wood, defeating somebody in video games) that help me relieve the primary emotions. Kya bolte ho?

Viraagi said...

Passions are derivatives or by products of the emotions we experience. They are infact subtle, secondary emotions we have. For instance, I experience anger, in order to relieve anger I passionately pursue things (such as chopping off wood, or defeating somebody else). In your case, somebody is passionate about garderning the primary emotion he experiences in love towards nature, he expresses that by caring and learning about plants.

me thinks....

Nosliw Zepol said...

Can you have passion without emotion?

Unknown said...

The real issue I think should be focused more on the balance between the two - a person with passion and no emotional responses will usually be a dictator, yet a emotional person with no passion will be normally be non productive. Healthy people have usually have a balance of the two.

Unknown said...

Don't you think though the key to good mental health is to have a balance of the two? Too much passion (Hitler), too much emotion (Greens).

Anonymous said...

Emotion does not separate us from animals, the ability to feel emotion has evolved, like every other aspect of our functioning. Emotion is created to drive and motivate behaviour, including fleeing from predators. Your understanding of emotion seems a little shallow. Passion is often confused with obsession too, which is a purely cognitive dysfunction. Peopel say "Oh, I'm just a passionate person" when what they really are is unable to balance their thoughts and be rational in the face of overwhelming and uncontrolled emotions.....

Unknown said...

Passions are emotions, the latter a spontaneous expression, while the former an expression directed by conscious thought. There is no passion without emotion, yet emotions exist unto themselves. Also, emotions can be positive or negative expressed just as passions may be. Lastly, animals have emotions, in fact according to the book, The Secret Life of Plants, even plants are sentient beings capable of feeling.

Anonymous said...

Emotions need not be always negatives. If by profession I am a writer and I am passionate about writing, there is always no way that I get my OWN book or a great writing, only when I am emotionally attached to my goal of writing a book, I can write one. It makes me strong from inside since my emotions are attached to it and I want to achieve it somehow..

Unknown said...

this is great blog, similar to my passion and emotion
http://www.healthandlovepage.com/passion-vs-emotion/